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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Raise the Dead

"...If God can raise the dead, he can conquer the greatest difficulty. He can put life

into dead men, life into dead hopes, and raise up our expectations from the grave of

despair. He can put life into dead bones and life into dead faith. We are proud crea-

tures and full of self-confidence, but God, by strange and unexpected providences,

hedges up our way with thorns. He brings us to despair even of life and brings us

under the sentence of death that we might not trust in ourselves, but in him who

raises the dead. He overturns us by despair, shows us what...fools we are in ourselves, that we might know nothing but God." *

Daily, there are reminders of my inability to rise from the death of my broken past without His life-giving favor. There is forever a fallen warrior inside called the "self" that is trying to destroy me despite God's final victory over it. The war may be won, but the battle still wages.

How comforting to know that He calls Himself "the Resurrection and the Life" and that I can come to Him and let Him be this for me, daily. I must be raised continually. I must despair in myself, die to myself, then be raised. For it is in this that I become alive.

Arise

God, who raises dead men,

Raise the dead inside of me;

Take my life and make me

Fit for eternity.

God, who raises dead men,

Breathe life into my soul;

Take what is dead and dying,

And make me fully whole.

God, who raises dead men,

Reach down to my despair;

Come into what is broken

With grace to meet me there.

God, who raises dead men,

Bid me to arise;

Make me stand before You

And gaze into Your eyes.

God, who raises dead men,

Resurrect and then revive;

Restore to life-abundant

So that I can be alive.

God, who raises dead men,

I see my need of Thee;

Raise the dead inside;

Lift me to eternity.

* from Voices From the Past published by Banner of Truth Trust. Copyrighted 2009.